Tag Archives: blind gamer

Final Fantasy X: Journey toward a Community

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When I started my Final Fantasy X Playthrough, I really only had one goal in mind. That goal was to do what I usually do, and use the game to demonstrate what the blind are willing to go through to game, and what made the game playable in the first place. That was its only intent. What I didn’t expect, though, is what happened, and that’s what we’re here to talk about today. Even as I write this, I am still mulling over my feelings now that it has concluded, and that is a good thing in a lot of ways. I will now attempt to put this all down as best I can. Here’s hoping I do a decent job.

The things I began playing the game to do actually happened almost right away. I wanted to demonstrate the patience required to play the game blind, so I did by allowing myself to wander until I found my next objective, or the next item I needed, in the beginning. I wanted to demonstrate the bits that aren’t so accessible, and I did that by talking about the sphere grid, and the cloisters of trials. I showed the world how the combat system was very accessible, since every attack from every monster sounded different, and combat menus could be memorized to determine whose turn it currently was. After all this, the accessibility demonstration portion was basically over, aside from questions that came from newcomers now and again. I had effectively done the job I set out to do with this game. As it happened, though, I wasn’t done just yet.

I have had a long history with Final Fantasy X. I have, in fact, beaten the game twice before, utilizing help from the sighted only in the parts where it is absolutely required to proceed. So, as I was demonstrating all these things to my viewers, I was drawn to play it again. I was committed to sticking it out, and at first, content to just beat the main game, the same thing I had done before, on stream. I figured it’d be a pretty neat idea. But then, something I didn’t expect started to happen.

Gradually, as the playthrough went on, its identity began to change. Except for those previously-mentioned newcomers, I didn’t have to explain anything anymore. My viewers made 3 things very clear to me. They got it, they respected it, and they wanted to help. Before I knew it, people were pointing me in the right direction for our next objective, or shouting for me to stop because I had just walked past that save point and they didn’t want me to miss it. At first, while I appreciated these gestures, it didn’t quite hit me what was happening. I admit I took them as temporary kindnesses, and didn’t intend to ask for or expect more help than what I absolutely needed help with.

The thing is, the level of connection people had to the playthrough, and the level of assistance they offered, kept increasing. It started to click with me that this was something special, and so I eventually put up the idea of doing all the endgame content I had never been able to do on my own so long as the viewership was willing to continue to help me in the ways that they had. Not only did they agree, they agreed immediately. They were completely into the idea, and wanted to help see it through. And that, if you ask me, is when the real journey began.

The Final Fantasy X playthrough had become a collaborative event. It had morphed from being a thing I was doing to make a point or 2, into a thing that all of us were doing together. Now, people weren’t just telling me where that save point was, or which way I should start walking to get into a new area. Now they were telling me how many dark matter I had, where I could find that monster in the monster arena, and how I as a blind person could play the necessary mini game required to get a few ultimate weapons. To continue to put some perspective on the level of caring and collaboration that existed here, one viewer had started trying to think of a way to build a servo mechanism that would attach to a webcam, and automatically press the X button when lightning flashed in the Thunder Planes, just because he wanted me to be able to complete an in-game challenge related to an ultimate weapon. Those who were knowledgeable about Final Fantasy X were giving me tips on how to farm things easier, and suggestions about ways to fight monsters, and start building my stats for the endgame. If a suggestion created any kind of accessibility trouble for me, we discussed it, and I think a lot of enlightenment came out of those talks.

This attitude toward the playthrough continued, and grew with my audience. Every now and then, someone new would take interest, and more often than not, become a part of the community that was being built around this. It was incredible. The viewers were getting eager just as I was getting eager. Everyone wanted to reach those end game bosses, Nemysis and Penance. That was the goal now, you see. Not just to beat the game, but to beat all its toughest bosses as well.

And so we pushed on. We farmed things, we chatted as I did some grinding for levels, we tested ourselves against other difficult monsters and optional bosses like the Dark Aeons. There were highs and there were lows. Every time another really difficult opponent was defeated, we all cheered and celebrated. But when we found out that, in order to even successfully hit Dark Yojimbo, we needed to increase the party’s luck stat, something I had been basically ignoring up to that point, we groaned a little. No matter what, though, we pushed on.

And so it was this continued until January 21 of 2019. That was the day when both Penance, the biggest toughest boss of the game, was defeated. We then wrapped up the main story, and enjoyed the end together. All the while, the collaboration never stopped. I was running short on time, so one of my viewers, the same one with the crazy webcam idea, hopped into a convenient PS4 shareplay, and walked me to the final confrontation with Sin, the final story boss. I then took control back to finish the job.

I am moved by what this has become. As I said, I’ve beaten the main story of the game before, but never has it meant so much to me as it did this time. As one particular viewer stated, this was the very definition of an odyssey. It was an adventure that all of us participated in, and finished together. Even those who couldn’t help directly, who showed up to check progress or to watch for a while, were part of this event. Furthermore, this event has spawned future plans as well. Now that I truly know the insane support system I have behind me, I’ve decided to dedicate part of my channel to a series I’m calling Let’s play Together, where we attempt to do more collaborations like this. Next up will be the highly-acclaimed JRPG Persona 5, which we have technically already begun. I cannot wait to see what becomes of that playthrough.

I know I am lucky to have found those I have. People who care about me and my content, and who embrace what I’m trying to do. In their way, they are helping me do it. They are amazing, and I couldn’t ask for a better group. I said at the end of the playthrough that, as much as they’ve given me, I hope I have given them something too, whether that’s just entertainment, or enlightenment some of them may not have had before about blind gamers. Maybe, just maybe, seeing this level of caring and collaboration will inspire someone in a way I cannot predict. For now, this event stands as something I will always remember, and a true foundation of my Twitch community.

It’s OK to be Wrong: The Resident Evil 7 Revelation

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“Nah, Resident Evil 7 isn’t playable at all by the blind,” I proclaimed to many people. “It’s missing all the features that made Resident Evil 6 playable, like the map trick we use. Plus the layout requires you to do a lot of backtracking, and also I tried the demo… Yeah, it’s not gonna work.” I’ve been saying this for a while now, as my discussions of Resident Evil 6 often lead to talk of Resident Evil 7. Well, it turns out, I was completely and totally wrong. Blind people have apparently been completing the game right under my giant nose, utterly ignoring the fact that I had dismissed it entirely. But how could this be? Am I not supposed to be knowledgeable about these things? Well, let’s discuss.

Here’s the first fun fact. People, as it turns out, are wrong all the time. Experts are wrong at least some of the time. It happens. There are many contributing factors to this. In the case of Resident Evil 7, I believe my problem was that I was holding it up to what Resident Evil 6 was, which is really quite a different game, rather than looking at it in a new light. I was concerned that I couldn’t navigate as easily, yet after following the examples I heard about and trying to play the game again, I discovered that with a little more patience, I could get to where I was going. I was concerned about the fact that ammunition was considerably less in RE7 than in RE6. I’m not far enough in the game that I can confirm how much of a problem this is, but facing facts, people have obviously gotten around this issue. These things are understandably difficult to argue when the facts are in front of you.

But here, folks, is the second fun fact. All of this, all of it, is OK. It’s OK that I was wrong, it’s OK for anyone to be wrong. It’s almost great, even. It shows the perseverance and determination of the blind gaming community that they kept trying, and found a way. It shows the depth of what accessibility means, and how things can be different even for those with the same disability. It stresses the importance of options when creating accessibility features, or in my opinion, any features.

We should, as a community, continue to feed each other what information we can about the games we play. We need to keep talking about them, teaching each other how we were successful at this or that game, and accepting as well that we, even amongst ourselves, are different. We all have different strengths and different skill levels, but so do the members of any other gaming community. To be clear, I’m not saying these things aren’t happening, just that they should continue. I just think an example like this brings their importance to the forefront. It’s a big world out there, and there are a lot of games in it. Let’s keep trying, keep playing, and keep working to make the ones we can’t play more accessible for everyone. Thanks as always for reading, and continue to be awesome!

Audio Games: Inspiring a Mission of Accessibility

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The work that I do these days has a lot of inspirations behind it. We’ve been through many of them on this blog. Today, though, I want to talk about audio games, and their influence on my way of thinking. There are hardworking developers, usually a single individual or team of 2, that make and have made audio only games for the blind, and they don’t get enough credit for their work. It’s time to give them what I can.

The inability to play a lot of video games leaves a lot of holes in our entertainment choices compared to your average sighted individual. Audio game developers sprung forth from this emptiness, seeking to fill those gaps with quality games of all types. Their motivation was to make games resembling those everyone else knew and loved which could be played by the blind. To me, though, they served as both inspiration, and proof positive that my ideas could work.

I can’t even begin to list all the inspirations for me that have come from audio games, but I can go over a few. Audio Games like GMA’s Shades of Doom showed me that shooting enemies blind was possible if you had enough audio indication of where they were. It also showed me that, with a little extra input, we could locate objects lying on the ground. It even had a few secrets for people willing to blow stuff up, which of course I was. It’s a fantastic game that I still enjoy playing today.

Another pretty sweet game called Superliam, created by L-works, taught me that even side-scrolling adventures with occasional platforming elements weren’t out of the question. A fast-paced, sometimes quite intense thrillride, Superliam’s gameplay was frenetic and fun, and I finally got to experience those super Mario moments where you accidentally jump just a little too far off a platform. Whoops!

My mind continued to expand when I played a game called Monkey Business, currently owned by Draconis Entertainment. Monkey business offered up a 3D environment filled with things to find and interact with. One particular level is actually an old western town, and is probably the best example of this. Hear the piano playing in the saloon, walk toward it, and right on into the saloon, where anything might happen next. It felt alive in a way that Shades of Doom didn’t quite replicate with its tight corridors. I personally believe, as crazy as its premis is, it holds up as one of the best audio games to date.

Remember a long time ago when I published my ideas for how a point and click adventure game could be made accessible through the use of interactive menus? Well, that idea was also inspired by audio games like Grizzly Gulch, and Chillingham, both from a developer known as Bavisoft. Sadly, as I understand it, you can no longer play Grizzly Gulch on modern systems, but I’ve heard Chillingham still works. At any rate, those games used systems like that for all of their gameplay. Navigation, inventory management, using one item with another, all of it. Honestly, even combat was sort of menu based, as targets would appear on your left, in the center, or on the right, and you used your arrow keys to switch between those 3 options. Actually, if you were insane, the hard difficulty levels of those games switched things up from 3 options to 5 during combat. It was not easy. I remember both of those games fondly, and still wish Chillingham actually got its sequel. Freakin cliffhangers.

I believe the point has been made here. Audio game developers were the original outside the box thinkers. Their desire to create, and their ingenuity allowed them to come up with amazing ideas that, as far as I’m concerned, developers can apply today. Everyone out there who is a developer of any game, and is looking to make their game blind accessible should check out some audio games. Learn how those developers got around the issues that might exist, and build off of that knowledge to make something awesome happen. These days, we’ve got zombie shooters just for us, we’ve got a card battle game, we even have a couple RPG’s like A Hero’s Call thanks to the entrepreneurship of Out of Sight Games. We’ve got all these, and more as well. You can find more information, and eeven links to these games, on www.audiogames.net

One final clarification. While audio games are, as many other things are, an essential part of the groundwork for making games accessible to the blind, they are still games produced by small teams. This is why I have said before that audio games don’t quite match the scope of today’s epic experiences. This is why the mission of accessibility holds true. You just read that there are actually a lot of audio games out there, and we love them, but we still want to play what everyone else is playing. We still want to play EVERYTHING else. Thanks all for reading, and of course, continue to be awesome!

To the Audio Teams: The Art of Sound

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Dear video game audio designers, producers, mixers, editors, engineers, technicians, quality analysts, composers, and any audio-related field I forgot to mention,
This letter from a blind gamer goes out to all of you. I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m pretty sure I can speak for most blind gamers out there when I say thank you. Thank you for putting in the time, and making the effort. Thank you for adding those little extra touches that we notice all the time. The things that a sighted player doesn’t necessarily need, but that add to the audio experience. Thank you for your own desire to make games sound as alive and vibrant as possible. Thank you for immersing yourselves in the material so the experience you create matches the story being told. Thank you for being awesome.

We blind gamers bow before you, audio teams. Without you, we couldn’t do what we do. Without those little touches, in some cases, we would be further hindered in our efforts. I’ve said before that blind accessibility is all about information, and the things you guys do with audio give us that information, sometimes whether or not you’re aware of it. I commonly use the example of Kingdom Hearts, where equipping different keychains causes Saura’s footstep and attack sounds to change based on which one is equipped. It doesn’t have to be this way, but it is thanks to an audio team that cared to make it so. Because of that, we can tell you by taking a few swings what we have equipped, and from there branch out into how much damage it does, what bonuses it has, and so on. The importance of these little things cannot be underestimated.

But let’s go further. Things get crazier when we consider things that have ambient sound, but don’t necessarily need to. The Death’s Breath crafting component in Diablo 3, save points and treasure spheres in Final Fantasy 13, all of these things and more are examples of necessary objects that we can now locate within a certain distance thanks to audio. Without those ambient sounds, they would just be lost to us. That’s huge! It’s so simple and easy for you audio guys to do, but it’s so, so very helpful.

But really, we’re only scratching the surface here. Let’s go even deeper, and discuss the crazy things audio teams are doing these days, like accurate surround sound positioning and even 3D audio in some cases, realistic echoes based on the objects sound is bouncing off of, (often used to indicate distance between, say, you and a companion), and even dimming of sounds that are blocked by an object such as a wall. The tremendous amount of code that must take is mindblowing, and the fact that you guys work to perfect it, to make it sound right, is inspiring. Let me just tell you now, in case you had any doubt, that it’s worth it.

Now we can’t talk about audio without talking about music. Music is a huge, huge part of creating an atmosphere in a game. I once spoke directly with Austin Wintory, and told him that the music in Journey is what really told me the story. It was true. The music in that game is powerful. It connected with me on a deep, deep level. It made me feel every emotion right along with my fiancé, who was actually the one playing it. I felt the joy of flying for the first time, I felt the rising tension as we got ever closer to our goal… It was an astounding feat of scoring for which Mr. Wintory has received much praise, but if you ask me, not enough. As I’ve said, I wasn’t even the one playing Journey, but when it was all said and done, I felt as though I had. I cannot think of another game that has achieved that effect on me personally.

That is not to say that I don’t love other game music, because I do. There’s a really old game called Stonekeep, which was one of the first games I ever owned. During one part of that game, you wander from the relatively dangerous, though not-too-difficult sewers beneath Stonekeep into the lair of a monstrous evil creature that you, at some point, must defeat in order to proceed. The brilliance of this is that the creature does not immediately attack you. It is, in fact, the music, which changes drastically and ominously the moment you step into the lair, that alerts you to be prepared if you plan on moving forward. After all, the lair itself is not large, and should you actually proceed despite the warning the music provides, then the additional warnings provided by the piles of bones in the area, you will find the beast lerking just a couple corners away. It’s a wonderful, powerful moment in the game, and for me, mostly because of the music.

There are plenty of examples of moments like that in games, but I particularly like that one. The power of music is, I think, becoming more respected these days. I feel like people are taking greater care with music, and that is very much appreciated. Look at, for instance, what Crystal Dynamics did with the first Tomb Raider reboot, scoring every single encounter differently, and using a dynamic music system to make it all flow depending on what you did. That is… That is awesome! There is just no other word for it. Even Killer Instinct for the Xbox One does awesome music tricks, picking up the background music depending on the size of the combos you’re doing. What better way to make you feel good about pulling off an amazing feat of fighting game excellence than to deliver the rousing chorus of that level’s music? It fits perfectly, and it’s also awesome.

I feel as though I could sit here and write about game audio for hours. However, I think that what it boils down to is this. Audio guys, you are our lighting. You are our graphics. You are our art. You are our atmosphere. You are our information. Sometimes, you are our story. You are essential. You are needed. And most of all, you are awesome. Thanks for reading. As always, consider supporting this content if you can, however you can, and continue to be awesome!

Twitch: Another Day, Another Fight

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Hey everyone, it’s rant time! Today’s topic, the gameplay streaming service known as Twitch. “But Brandon,” I hear you say. “You use Twitch yourself!” I do, because certain aspects of Twitch make it the best option for what I am doing. However, that does not mean it is free from all judgement, and ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to judge.

We of the disabled community are fighting inaccessibility all the time. Sometimes we fight it where we work. Sometimes we fight it when we go out. Sometimes we fight it in video games, as I do. It feels like all day, every day, we’re fighting society’s refusal to simply accommodate us. If that sounds like whining to you, you’re probably not disabled, and have no idea how honest I am being right now. Regardless of what you might think, access to everything should be a wright for all. Inaccessibility is more than a lack of access, it’s a lack of freedom to do things and experience things others can. It is wrong.

I have been working to correct assumptions, and right wrongs where I can where video games are concerned. Video games have been my focus because I have always loved them, and as a result I’m passionate about playing them. Long story short, this brings me to where I am today, attempting to educate and entertain with my gameplay analysis and discussions about accessibility and whatnot. Wouldn’t it figure, though, that one of the tools I use to do this, (this is where we come back to Twitch), is now partially inaccessible?

The worst part of this situation is that there used to be no problem. Even up until a couple weeks ago, the ability to edit info on Twitch videos, and then export them to Youtube was perfectly accessible. Oh sure there had been problems before that while the new site was in beta, but it seemed as though all had been fixed. I actually thought that perhaps my concerns had been listened to and addressed. I was wrong.

Everything was fine the first couple days after I started doing this full time. I was delighted with how things were going. Then, somewhere, some switch got flipped, or some process was altered, and everything changed. Suddenly, attempting to export my video pulled up a page that a screenreader can’t even read. Even using additional tactics such as Optical Character Recognition wasn’t enough to get an idea of where I should be clicking. Overnight, this functionality has become totally inaccessible to the blind.

As before, I attempted to get a response from Twitch’s support account on Twitter, @twitchsupport. I had heard they really do answer requests. But just as before, I got no response. My supposedly more highly-valued affiliate status doesn’t seem to matter much to them, because addressing accessibility concerns is, as it is for many companies I’ve learned over the years, too big a task. Or, if anything, it is something that is placed on the back burner, and I mean the one in the way, way back, which is covered in dust from disuse.

So how have I overcome this issue? Well, for the moment, I have actually recruited a friend of mine. This friend has graciously agreed to, with my permission, log into my Twitch account every day, and export the relevant videos. Is that not the dumbest and most unnecessary thing you’ve heard all day? It’s necessity. It’s responding to Twitch ignoring the problem. It’s doing what I have to do to make something out of this. I do it because I want people to see these videos and learn from some, and be entertained by all. This work matters to me. It’s just a shame I have to take such measures in order to do it.

I’m not expecting a miracle to spring forth from this blog. This is, as advertised, a rant. I would love to see change. I would love for this to result in a conversation with the Twitch development team. Believe me, it’s a conversation I would love to have. But I’m going to leave you with this. Consider, for a moment, what it means that I don’t expect anything. It is, unfortunately, still a general expectation that people will not listen or care, and that’s a sad state of affairs. At any rate, I’m done for now. Thanks as always for reading, and continue to be awesome!